Rolling Country 2010

Speaking of Joe Dee Messina, heard "Bye Bye" (written by Phil Vassar) from 1998 on the radio for the first time in a long long time today, and wow -- forgot what a great pop-rock country song that is. Like, Katrina and the Waves level catchy. (Same album as "I'm Alright"," too -- that was the title track -- another great hit written by Vassar.)

Miranda Lambert's experienced quite a sales spike in the last few weeks, I see (awards, etc).

She's also finally got a #1 song w/ "House That Built Me" (she said her first was "White Liar," but Billboard has that peaking at #2, unless she's talking about some other chart).

I've participated in the last couple of Nashville Scene polls, so I hope it's fair game to jump into the conversation here.

Miranda's "White Liar" hit #1 on the Mediabase chart, which is used for most of the radio countdown shows like American Country Countdown, but not on Billboard. I have no idea why anyone would get caught up in that distinction, but if you're a pyromaniac, you can go to Carrie Underwood's fan forum and ask someone how many #1 hits Underwood has had, and then hold on to your hat.

Singles Jukebox reviews of current singles by...

Josh Turner

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2378

Jason Aldean

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2377

Chris Young

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2379

Lots to say, mostly on some later date maybe, about the CMT Country Video Awards or whatever they're called the other night (actually watched them in a hotel room in San Francisco that had cable!); drunk Kid Rock opening with five or so minutes of hard rock rap was a trip (hey, the song was "Cowboy" -- get it? plus Trace and Bocephus and Martina McBride and Randy Houser helped him out), and seemed to leave almost as many people in the audience confused as when those two stupid "Jersey Shore" kids (who I'd never seen before, and have no interest in seeing again) and Paula Dean (who I'd never even heard of before -- apparently she has a cooking show or something, somebody told me?) came on to present an award. Whole show reminded me how "CMT" is a way different, more wide-rangningly trendy, aesthetic than CMAs or ACMs or whatever; no stodgy old George Straits or Randy Travises hanging around to bore things up, for one thing. But I do think country purists would probably have a point about a lot of the show being aggressively non-country, even if that made it more entertaining, for the most part. Anyway, where that really comes into play for me is that I swear I saw John Anderson on the screen five times at least during the ceremony (including, if I'm not mistaken, playing guitar in the background during LeAnn Rimes's pretty good boogie-woogie-bugle-boy -schticked remake of "Swingin'"), but he was never named -- I think they even just introduced "Swingin'" as an "old country classic" or something like that. There was something really fucked up about that.

"I just recorded a song with Kid Rock for his new album. It seems like an odd pairing, but I love that he sees the real redneck in me," McBride said during Billboard's Country Music Summit this week. "There's a rapper called T.I. who raps the third verse. Kid Rock sings the first verse, I sing the second verse, and T.I. raps the third verse. Crazy, but it's really uplifting and it's a cool melody and it feels good. It makes sense. If I was rapping the third verse, that would not make sense."

http://www.billboard.com/#/news/country-s-martina-mcbride-collaborates-with-1004097478.story

Was flipping channels on Saturday when I went by CMT Top 20 Countdown. Nickelback had something
in it. Can't remember the title, made me laugh, along with Kenny Chesney forsaking his usual summer take on Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville for Jason Aldean's Bad Company imitation in a lighter/higher register. You owe me for that one, Chuck. Actually, I'm giving Chesney too much credit on "Ain't Back Yet," since it's so languid it's almost dead. He makes Bill Shatner/Jim Kirk grimaces and grandiloquent
stage gestures and you keep waiting for the music to kick it up a notch or something like a real thump to creep into it. But it never does. Horns try to add pizzazz, fail. When he sings "I'm gone and I ain't back yet" about one hundred times it's truth in advertising.

Actually, "I was gone and I ain't back yet." Joe Walsh and Sammy Hagar make video appearances.
The Grandpap club, desperate for attention, will get onstage with anyone.

The Chesney single is a complete non-starter. I think it's telling that it's one of just a small handful of singles (just 5 or 6 total, out of more than 20) that he's released since 2000 to miss the top 2 at country radio.

The new Little Big Town album, though? A couple of dud, Starbucksish ballads, including a cover of a song from Julie Roberts' self-titled debut, but most of it is pretty terrific stuff. Granted, it will probably sell a fraction of what the new Lady Antebellum has sold, but it has a much stronger pulse.

Good to hear about LBT. (Though I'm holding out for a physical advance copy before I listen to it, at least for now. Out in September I think.)

The Nickelback song on CMT that George mentioned is presumably "This Afternoon," the relatively (for them) light and bouncy semi-country choogle from their most recent long-shelf-life album. It just entered the Hot 100 this week, I think; mentions CCR and Bob Marley in the lyrics, as I recall. About partying with bros. Haven't seen video yet.

And yep, George definitely deserves credit for my Aldean/Bad Co linkage.

Anyway, a couple reccent reviews. First the new Dierks Bentley, which I didn't expect to like (as I said upthread), but really grew on me:

http://www.rhapsody.com/dierks-bentley/up-on-the-ridge-2#albumreview

Now archived folk bluesman John Jackson, who covers a great country hit:

http://www.rhapsody.com/john-jackson/rappahannock-blues#albumreview

And here's a few hundred words I just did for Rhapsody, on Petty/Mellencamp's influence on current country:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2010/06/heartland.html

The Nickelback song on CMT that George mentioned is presumably "This Afternoon," the relatively (for them) light and bouncy semi-country choogle from their most recent long-shelf-life album.

plus it has a passing resemblance, musically, to kid rock's "all summer long."

best thing about the video, which is basically a pool party stocked w/bikini babes, is that when the kid running the party finds out nickelback will be the entertainment, he says, "nickelback? you got me nickelback??? alright, fine, they'll do." i can't tell if that's nickelback making light of their critical reputation, or if it's them making light of their considerably large egos, or if they're just being silly. either way, it made me smile.

LBT is out on August 24th, so hopefully the physical promo copies will be going out before too long.

The Petty and Mellencamp influences (and I'd probably throw Bob Seger into that conversation, as well) are definitely felt heavily in many of the men in contemporary country, but I don't know if I would necessarily extend that to the likes of Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift or some of the other women (Miranda Lambert, Kellie Pickler) who have some traction at country radio. The Grammy performance with Swift from back in the winter suggests that Stevie Nicks might be the best analogue for the women, but there's also a whole lot of Pat Benetar in Underwood's uptempo numbers and especially in the last Martina McBride album.

Well, like I said, Swift has covered "American Girl," and "Picture To Burn" has early Cougar in its phrasing. And somebody was saying here a couple years ago that they heard Mike Campbell type guitars in the Dixie Chicks' "Voice Inside My Head," and various Kathleen Edwards songs, if she counts. But yeah, I agree that influence is primarily on the country guys. And sure, there are other influences, too, of course -- I just focused on Petty and Coug there because they have, uh, new product on the shelves. I don't doubt Urban and Paisley are also Lindsey Buckingham fans, and obviously Little Big Town are almost a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. (Kid Rock called Lady Antebellum "the country Fleetwood Mac" at the CMTs, which makes less sense.) Not so sure I hear very much Stevie Nicks in country's females voices, though -- maybe occasionally. Occasional Benatar too. Sugarland's "Take Me As I Am" has a lot of Benatar in it, I think. I hear a lot of '80s Heart in Underwood; maybe some Joan Jett, too, which she never quite pulls off.

As for that Nickelback video, which I agree is funny, maybe the point is just that they want to expand their already huge audience to music fans (e.g., country ones) who are now skeptical about them. So self-deprecation could work in their favor. (Btw, I was way off about "This Afternoon" having just entered the Hot 100; it's actually been on that chart for 10 weeks. Entered the Top 40 just two weeks ago, though.)

And as for the country chart, two new songs I should try to hear:

55 1 Trailerhood, Toby Keith
T.Keith (T.Keith ) Show Dog-Universal PROMO SINGLE | 55
58 NEW 1 From A Table Away, Sunny Sweeney
B.Beavers (S.Sweeney,B.DiPiero,K.Rochelle ) Republic Nashville PROMO SINGLE | 58

Most interesting phenomenon on the country album chart might be this, I think -- which seems to have expanded since I first noticed it here a few months ago; wonder if Billboard's done a story on it yet:

26 28 25 15 Hillbilly Bone (EP), Blake Shelton
Reprise/Warner Bros. 522642 | WMN | 8.98 2

56 56 68 53
Off The Hillbilly Hook (EP), Trailer Choir
Show Dog-Universal 025 | 7.98 30

58 RE-ENTRY 2 She Won't Be Lonely Long (EP), Clay Walker
Curb DIGITAL EX | 4.98 58

60 RE-ENTRY 2 Love Like Crazy (EP), Lee Brice
Curb DIGITAL EX | 4.98 56

75 66 74 7 The Band Perry (EP), The Band Perry
Republic Nashville DIGITAL EX | UMGN | 4.98 42

I know Colt Ford had an EP on the chart a month or so ago, too.

Mellencamp's longtime association with FarmAid, which has always drawn some country headliners, makes him a pretty obvious artist to bear influence on the genre. CMT routinely ran the videos for "Jack & Diane," "Paper in Fire," and even "Key West Intermezzo" during their various alternative-country programming blocks during the mid-90s. I can remember Petty turning up alongside Kelly Willis and Kevin Welch during those blocks every once in a while, as well.

The Toby Keith single is streaming here:
mms://wm1.cesca.com/showdog/TobyKeith/Trailerhood.wma

I've found that the execution on his recent output has been lacking, and I don't hear much life in his performance on this one. Though, if nothing else, it's better than the Josh Turner album track of the same name from a couple of years ago.

55 1 Trailerhood, Toby Keith
T.Keith (T.Keith ) Show Dog-Universal PROMO SINGLE | 55

Josh Turner has a song w/ this title on Everything is Fine.

Pat Benetar in Underwood's uptempo numbers and especially in the last Martina McBride album.

Maybe you didn't see it but country on cable had a "Crossroads" broadcast that teamed Benatar and McBride doing each others tunes. During the course of the thing Martina McBride said she'd been in a cover band named Penetrator or Penetration, I can't recall precisely, and they'd performed some of Benatar's tunes. Much hilarity ensued.

Wouldn't say that the Taylor-Stevie connection is influence (at least not in regard to musical specifics such as pronunciation, arrangement, etc.) so much as that Fearless is marinated in a moody femininity that reminds me of Wild Heart-era Stevie* and that Taylor (and Michelle and Jewel, and the Natalie Dixies before that) is heir to a feminine singer-songwriter sensibility that includes Stevie (is much more its heir than Little Big Town is, even though Little Big Town is so obviously indebted to Fleetwood Mac). That's what I argued in my Country Critics ballot, which I posted upthread.

(I forget if I also linked my decade's end piece here, but that includes a variant of this theory, starting about halfway in.)

*Wild Heart contains a Tom Petty song, not that that's particularly relevant to what I'm saying.

Don't have a strong opinion yet on "Trailerhood"'s sound: I like the Hawaiian slide a lot, the rest is deliberately laid back, and maybe my not having an immediate strong opinion on a Toby sound does constitute an opinion, i.e., I'm leaning "so what?" Lyrics make the trailerhood sound a lot narrower and more ingrown than the world of "I Love This Bar."

Jaron and the Long Road To Love, Singles Jukeboxed (and I'm still wondering about the, er, Jewish question that I raise in the comments):

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2426

Also, John Mayer with a smidgen of Taylor Swift:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2427

Jon Caramanica on Elizabeth Cook, live in NYC's suburbs:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/arts/music/23cook.html

...And on the Nashville Rising flood benefit. Is Michael W. Smith always such a Tea Partying asswipe, or was he just having a bad day? (Also, how, quantitatively, does devastation from the Nashville flood compare to Katrina? It's not even close, right?) Also wonder if I'm the only NY Times subscriber who read this piece and knew what by Toby Keith "doing his best Jamey Johnson impersonation," but it made me laugh anyway. Toby looked pretty worn down on the CMT Telecast, I thought, and bored while singing "American Ride"; when asked what he thought of Kid Rock's opening performance, he said he missed it because he was in the bar. (Still haven't checked out his new single myself.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/arts/music/24nashville.html

"what was meant by Toby 'doing...." etc. (Actually, I do wonder whether badasses like Toby might think that Jamey is raising the ante for what they should be doing. Could prove interesting, if so, but I haven't heard it reflected in Toby's -- or Trace's, or Montgomery Gentry's, etc. -- music yet. Though I also wouldn't swear Jamey is that big a leap. He does concentrate more on looking scary on stage, though.)

Finally, Michael Corcoran in this morning's Austin Statesman on the Mother Truckers, whose new album I like, just like I liked their previous two, though I think I agree that their second one was most consistent, and the new one leans slightly more toward blues-based hard rock and less toward country. Also do like "Keep It Simple" too, though I'm not sure I think it's the best track; leaning toward opener "Alien Girl," which just like "Dynamite" last time reminds me as much of Suzi Quatro as anything rural or rootsy. Actually wish they did more songs like that. Still need to catch them live sometime, but they always play below the river, which is a little bit of a trek, and more so, farther away than I'd want to drive home after midnight from after drinking a few beers, which I'm sure would be hard not to do while watching these folks. Lame excuse, I know. Still need to catch Shinyribs sometime, too.

http://www.austin360.com/music/mother-truckers-better-than-the-van-764283.html

Mother Truckers' myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/themothertruckers

Watched the "Dynamite" video on YouTube. Rockabilly, a bit more on the rock boogie with the cool train beat, so I get the Suzi Quatro ref -- with the lady. The guy's nerd rock voice, though -- ehhh. No way I'd last for an album of that. Having read the Austin Statesman piece, not buying the bit about any hit single.

There's an ever more ornate shtick these types of bands mint. Not sure what it's called -- grindhouse movie pseudo white trash baseball capped roller derby for college students in [name the university town].

I guess it was cowpunk when it started three decades ago.

"Hot Legs" recorded & video'd in some dive was entertaining but I'd by fibbing if I said I got the end of these things. Three minutes with one minute of a heavy metal interlude tossed into the Rod Steward tune and the band's real tight but the self-defeating baseball cap look's gotta go and the lady has to get to sing more with a little less from the band.

And is the look taken from Sookie Stackhouse's dim brother in True Blood all the rage now, or?

Reba does Beyonce.

Not as on-point as Sugarland's version of "Irreplaceable," but she and Beyonce both lean heavily on melisma when they sing, so it works pretty well.

Jaron and the Long Road To Love, Singles Jukeboxed (and I'm still wondering about the, er, Jewish question that I raise in the comments)

Juice Newton is the only Jewish performer I can recall who has hit the top 20 on the country charts. Ray Benson, the frontman for Asleep at the Wheel, is also Jewish, but that act has only cracked the top 40 a handful of times. And Kinky Friedman is something of a cult figure, though he never really had any noteworthy chart success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7U-UD766s

is this a good country song? is this a country song? i like it

Did you guys read the Nashville Scene thing I did on Elizabeth Cook (looking back upthread)? It's on the Scene site in case you didn't see it. I would say it's an intermittently brilliant little record, I would give it a A-minus if I gave grades. Songwriting fades halfway thru and musically...well, it has its moments, but it's mainly received wisdom or received harmonic language as Xgau pointed out. Saw Cook at Station Inn for the release party in Nashville--you know, we liked it, she's great and her husband plays nice guitar. But whether or not the voice is compelling enough or rich enough to keep me innerested over the long haul...dunno. However, "Heroin Addict Sister" is mighty good songwritin'.

Let's see, mainly I've been writing about just whatever tickles my fancy and/or comes thru town. Did see Tim O'Brien, also at Station Inn (I like the old dump of a place in the newly gentrified Gulch area of town with its fancy coffee shops and new buildings). You know, the guy's kinda wry and he comes across as another victim/observer, I like him OK. And mainly we've been going out to see stuff, we caught Paul Thorn, who definitely belongs here on this thread, at the Belcourt. Tight little band in a Stones/Attractions vein, a real good drummer and a big, fat keyboard dude, like Thorn from Tupelo. Anyway, his trailer-park song and his one about how he don't like his relatives but he loves them are also good, funny, and he knows how to parlay his plain voice and average-dude looks and Southern bad-boy charm into a very good night out indeed. Caroline just loved him, I liked him a lot, the women in gen'l seemed to love him. The record--Pimps and Preachers--is just OK, though.

And I think I find Deer Tick a bit repetitive, altho the opening Black Dirt track is quite cool. Megafaun's use of electronics 'n such gives them the edge over the Tick. I wrote something about Dierks B. recently--I thought his bluegrass record was mainly a load of shit, just because the songs were such Music Row hackdom and phoned in. The Dylan cover, meh, but one blues by Suzi Ragsdale or someone like that (writer) was kinda good. Just didn't get the frission of bluegrass/country I was supposed to, and I still like his thrown-away road-dog singles from a few years ago, as bluegrass fusionoid thang.

Someone above, Chuck maybe, asked about the Nashville flood. Maybe I should look at the numbers, but I can tell you whole subdivisions (the ones built in bends of the Cumberland River, where of course they shouldn't have been) were wiped out, main roads like Harding Pike there at Belle Meade Blvd. (very tony address) and Charlotte Pike were under water, the interstates were under water. In our little subdivision, the entire row of houses along the Little Harpeth River were flooded with mud up to the windows, and two houses partially burned right down the street. Pretty bad, but the impact of Katrina on a much poorer populace was probably bigger. We didn't get flooded 'cause we up on a hill, but it was freaky: 40 hours of straight rain.

Also saw Neil Young at the Ryman and, you know, he was good and all. But actually I was there to see Bert Jansch, I had been listening to Jansch a lot recently, and also wrote him up in the Scene recently in case you wanna read it. I mean Jansch belongs in this discussion if only for the way he parallels bluegrass and acoustic blooze/roots stuff--the L.A. Turnaround is a decent slice of country-rock but perhaps not him in his most congenial surroundings, and produced by Mike Nesmith with the great Red Rhodes on pedal steel. Speaking of bluegrass, Roland White's I Wasn't Born to Rock 'n' Roll, recently reissued by Tompkins Square, is an uncommonly relaxed and listenable straight bluegrass record from mid '70s.

Hey Edd! (At least I assume you're Edd...) Glad you're okay, and glad you're back, even if we don't see eye to eye about what counts as powerpop. Hope it didn't seem like I was underplaying Nashville's storm damage; didn't mean to. Just thought Michael W. Smith's claim that Katrina got New Orleans more national attention mainly because of all the "looters" was totally offensive bullshit, especially coming from a Christian pop star. Fairly obvious what "looters" there is code for.

I played the new Paul Thorn album a couple times, and nah, it didn't do anything for me, either. Just don't think he's got a compelling voice, at all. (Can say the same for his fellow onetime songwriter for Toby Keith, Fred Eaglesmith, whose new album shot maybe even more of a blank for me.) But the one time I saw Thorn live in NYC, he was indeed fun.

Curious what you think about some of the classic country folks I discuss upthread -- Hank Thompson, Statler Brothers, Buck Owens, etc. Still feeling that Owens's sad-sack schtick is way more limited than he's usually given credit for -- seems odd that the Buckaroos' fast instrumental cuts so often wind up being some of my favorites on his LPs -- but I did wind up liking the 50 cent copy of 1965's Before You Go/No One But You I picked up OK. He even covers the Coasters.

I'll have some more to say about Mother Truckers one of these days -- George is right that they're much better when Teal sings, but I might like the guy's singing at least a little more than George does. Their albums are pretty spotty, either way. Not so sure that their fans are mostly college kids, as George suggests -- do college kids even like bar band roots rock anymore? -- but then, George seems to have watched more live youtube clips than I have. (That usually takes me a while.)

Wrote a bunch about Flynnville Train's new album on Rolling Hard Rock. Normally I'd just post a permalink, but it's spread over a bunch of posts, so for user-friendly reasons I'll just cut and paste instead:

Hardest rocking new track I've heard so far in 2010, I think, might be Flynnville Train's cover of "Sandman" by America, a song I never even liked before. A country band, allegedly, but country in the Kentucky Headhunters sense, and this cut's as loud as that band's "Big Boss Man," at least. Total guitar jam. Rest of the new album is growing on me, but I don't think anything else gets this heavy. (On Evolution Records, whatever that is -- their debut, which made my top 10 a couple years ago, was on Toby Keith's label Show Dog.) Here's their myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/flynnvilletrain

― xhuxk, Monday, 28 June 2010 03:38

Turns out the other 9-or-10 out of 10 track on Flynnville Train's Redemption, besides their America cover, is "Friend Of Sinners," about asking Christ's forgiveness since you've fucked up all the commandments. Might sound cheesy on paper, but a big part of what makes those two cuts rock the hardest is their use of space and quiet to let the rhythm and lead guitars build over the monster drums. They're also the two darkest and most menacing (and maybe the longest -- haven't checked) cuts on the CD. Rest of the album comes as close to Skynyrd as any contemporary country I've heard, with subliminal rockabilly and Chuck Berry parts and really good songwriting; "Preachin' To The Choir" and "On Our Way" (which says the band got their start back in '83 -- not sure if that's to be taken literally or not) being two of the higher highlights. "Turn Left" is the NASCAR song; "Scratch Me When I'm Itchin'" the horndog song; "Alright" the one that sounds like Dave Edmunds in Rockpile; "The One You Love" the token ladies' choice, and at first I thought they mushed out, but its guitars are really purty.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 01:37

And eh...forget I mentioned Skynyrd in re: Flynnville Train. Dumb comparison. Skynyrd had more than rockabilly and Chuck Berry going for them anyway -- for one thing, they were a lot funkier. And Flynnville seem much more inclined to be pandering (sometimes in the usual modern Nashville ways) as songwriters, and also (unlike Skynyrd) they're not geniuses. Guess I just mean that, like with the best Headhunters stuff, you can really tell you're hearing a seasoned, self-contained band, who know how to work and rock as a unit. Which, with Nashville still using session musicians no matter how loud it gets, remains a rarity. The guitars do sometimes sound kind of Skynyrdy, though.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 02:55

...and they still do have a more swinging rhythm section than say Drive By Truckers (or Neil Young, for that matter -- can't think of when he's rocked as hard as Flynnville's "Sandman," which is neat since I've always figured America as the wimp version of Neil in the first place. Still have no idea what the lyrics are supposed to be about, though.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 03:44

You may not believe this but I saw more than one high school band turn "Sandman" into a fuzztone proto-metal dirge around '70-'72. It was basically a simple dirge all along, so you could hammer the shit out of it. Which may or may not be what Flynnville does but thought I'd mention it. There was precedent.

― Gorge, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 12:26 AM

a fuzztone proto-metal dirge around '70-'72. It was basically a simple dirge all along, so you could hammer the shit out of it. Which may or may not be what Flynnville does

It's pretty close! Dirge into raveup, maybe. Wonder if any amateur versions like that from 40 years were actually recorded; if not, it's crazy that it took so long.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 15:30

Starts here (and if anybody's interested, there's talk of Styx, Strawbs, Gaslight Anthem, Savoy Brown, Pat Travers, etc. mixed in):

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Also, Single Jukebox reviews of Carrie Underwood's "Undo It":

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2458

Yeah, it is indeed me. I somehow lost my old ilx identity and had to get a new 'un...kind of my tip o' the Hatlo hat to Green Acres...and yeah, had to give you some shit on power pop, Chuck, just funnin' around...feeling good these days, healthier. Been a hell of a year or so...

Buck Owens I really like in small doses, the Don Rich stuff I mean. Someone told me there's a new Buck bio out--maybe it was Yuval Taylor--and apparently, wow, he was one mean son-of-a-bitch. But yep, the uptempos are the only good things.

As for the Statlers--wow again, that is some fucked-up shit. White message sacred music with some very scared moments of nostalgia/tortured liberalism...the CoMuHall of Fame did a thing on them recently and no one from the Statlers would talk to me (Ray Stevens even took my call!), but I wrote this for the Scene on 'em:

Statler Brothers Interview
When: Thu., June 3, 12 p.m. 2010
Many country artists worked the society-is-hypocrisy angle in the '60s and '70s, but The Statler Brothers made music that was concerned with how middle-class Americans thought about class, aspiration and history. A onetime gospel group from Virginia, The Statler Brothers first hit with 1965's “Flowers on the Wall" and went on to record such classics as “Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott." Their harmonies were gospel, but their songs married comedy, folk and country to the era's socially conscious pop. On 1970's “New York City," they narrated the tale of a woman who is shamed into having her illegitimate child in an unfriendly metropolis, while the incredible “Junkie's Prayer" added gospel changes to a sordid tale. In short, they're one of country's oddest and most interesting groups. Today's interview session and CoMu's new Statlers exhibit ought to shine some light on the matter.
— Edd Hurt

Fred Eaglesmith! I gotta listen to that new one. I admit, Christgau did a review of one of them...what's the name of it?...and got me into Fred. Pretty interesting cat.

Deaths: Larry Jon Wilson died. I am a fan of his "New Beginnings" LP on Monument, '75, but don't like the one he did on Drag City a couple years ago as much. As far as basso Georgia profundo voices go and rampant regionalism and everything, he's great...also on some of those "Country Got Soul" comps. He had played the Bluebird here and foolishly I didn't see him. Also, speaking of power pop, Tommy Hoehn died, he worked with Chilton and Van Duren in Memphis and had one great cut far as I could tell, included on one of those American Power Pop comps, "Blow Yourself Up." Well, kinda great.

So here's me on Ray Stevens. I got on a Nilsson kick earlier this year--I don't think anyone in pop was better than Nilsson at his best, actually--but I stand by my comparison; the Stevens record I mention is the one to get if you get just one...

Nashville Cats feat. Ray Stevens
When: Sat., April 24, 1:30 p.m. 2010
You could describe Ray Stevens’ classic ’60s and ’70s work as Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson for suburbanites, but Stevens took the novelty song places those artists could only dream of. A Georgia native who cut his teeth as an A&R man for Mercury Records in the early ’60s, Stevens is a schooled musician who — much like Newman — has a genius for arranging. Working in Nashville, he scored big ’60s hits such as “Ahab the Arab” and “Gitarzan.” His 1968 Even Stevens remains a minor classic of unpretentious social commentary, with “Mr. Businessman” and the amazing “Say Cheese” sounding like lighter, less austere variations on Nilsson’s lost-in-the-city fantasias. He continued to score in the ’70s with “Everything Is Beautiful” and another great novelty tune, “The Streak.” Stevens remains topical: His new full-length We the People includes a Sarah Palin tribute, “Caribou Barbie.”
— Edd Hurt

oh yeah, Eaglesmith's "Ralph's Last Show."

Tom Russell, he was mentioned above? He did a show here with Gretchen Peters, they did a record together all about the Wild West. Anyway, that was OK, Peters is might genteel, but Russell's last record, "Blood and Candle Smoke," is a Kamp Klassic. I can't play the thing, I laugh so hard I feel like I'm moving around a kidney stone or something. in fact, here's my American Songwriter review of it, they won't care, they done paid me my $10 for it:

TOM RUSSELL
Blood and Candle Smoke
(SHOUT! FACTORY)
Rating: ★★★★☆

Listeners with a sense of the unintentionally hysterical are in for a treat with Tom Russell’s Blood and Candle Smoke. Calexico backs him in a garish neo-Marty Robbins mode, with lots of south-of-the-border trumpet embellishing Russell’s narratives. What’s fascinating about Candle Smoke is Russell’s obvious passion for his great, big, sentimental continent, from Indiana to Texarkana—every line he delivers screams a kind of virile campiness that he probably didn’t intend. Candle Smoke is a noble experiment and, quite simply, a hoot—Richard Harris is smiling and singing “MacArthur Park” in heaven. Russell conflates Dory Previn and Graham Greene in the record’s opener, while “Criminology” is set in Nigeria and mentions Picasso. “All that real estate and pride/All those Indians that died /While the Spanish priests/Danced the drunk fandango,” he moans in “Santa Ana Wind.” It’s a funny, funny record, and you may just love it.

Ha ha, I might actually even check that Tom Russell album out. Though I'm pretty sure I'd still put him in the Paul Thorn/Fred Eaglesmith category of "more likeable when actual singers are singing his songs."

Somebody started a thread about Ray Stevens here not too long ago. I've only skimmed it myself, though he does seem like a bit of a wingnut now:

Remember when Ray Stevens was on dr. demento and the streak was vaguely funny? Well, now he is shilling himself on Fox News during the glen beck show between vaccum cleaner ads and hannity bullshit.

So Edd, do you have any thoughts about Don Williams (discussed upstream, too)?

is this a good country song? is this a country song?

Definitely country, and yeah, I like the song, too. And the girl is a strong singer. That nerdy guy with her seems weak, though -- at least here. And I hope if/when she records it, she speeds it up some. Does get me curious about Cary Ann Hearst's other stuff. Here's her myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/caryannhearst

Most girl empowerment tunes make me flinch but I just got around to hearing McBride's "Wrong Baby Wrong," mostly liking it for the Keith Richards-type riff underwriting it. Plus the ringing guitars in the ascending change-ups. Anyway, I'm assuming it's old news now and the album
flopped? Because if the rest of the album is a bit commensurate with that tune, then I'd probably like it. But if not, no.

Frank (who put the album in his top 10 last year, and so has probably listened to it more than I have) can correct me if I'm wrong (baby wrong), but I don't think there's anything else along the Stones-guitared lines of that song on Shine. I might like "Wild Rebel Rose" -- which lyrically is basically her "Janie's Got A Gun," except better -- even more than the single. The rest didn't click much for me.

Btw, George mentioned Alejandro Escovedo's new album on Rolling Hard Rock, rightly making fun of rock critics' predictable fauning over it this week. In Austin especially -- the Statesman gave the record an "A," par for the course down here -- he was all over best-Austin-albums-of-the-decades-lists in January. Truth is, it's a really dull record, and I say that as somebody who at least found Real Animal two years ago catchy enough to hang onto. (The only Escovedo album I've ever been able to say that about.) I'm not supposed to slag records at the venue where I reviewed the new one, but I hope that what I did write sounds backhanded enough that people might get the point:

http://www.rhapsody.com/alejandro-escovedo/street-songs-of-love#albumreview

Actually, turns out the Bowery song, according to the Statesman piece, isn't supposed to be about a woman at all, but inspired by his angry, graffiti-loving punk teenage son. Which might be interesting, if there had been even a single clue in the lyrics that that's the case.

Something longer I wrote about his last one, fwiw:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/08/alejandro-escovedo-has-a-good-time-but-gets-out-alive.html

Just went over to Rhapsody which gives me 20-something free listens every few months as
enticement.

The Escovedo album -- I guess it sounds like rocking to people who don't like rocking much at
all. I gave the first tune, "Anchor," the most time and it reminded me of a very
poor man's Bruce, just like Southside Johnny or Nils Lofgren solo album(s) around Cry Tough or after he joined the E-Street Band.

His voice isn't good enough to support the almost non-existent hooks in the music. Tony Visconti produced Bolan and left when Bolan stopped writing catchy stuff. Here he's slumming.

Some of things sound neo-tough because he pumps them up with quiet-loud-quiet-loud drama. "Street Songs" is one good example, which would be something a fan of Lou Reed might produce.

The only other thing that grabbed me a little was "Tender Heart" -- but it's really still just warmed over Asbury Park. I understand Austin has to root for him but -- y'know -- the new Foghat 2.0 album is better roots rock.

And so is Martina McBride's "Wrong Baby Wrong." Your comment on "Wild Rebel Rose" keeps me thinking about investigating further.

I have to thank Rhapsody. The charity listens convinced me I was right when I disparaged the idea of it after reading Kot's tribune review in the LA Times.

Re Escovedo, or maybe desultory stuff from Graham Parker. Who's every album always seemed to invariably generate more huzzahs than they were worth when you finally got them home and out of the shrinkwrap.

After Squeezing Out Sparks, Parker was basically useless, at least as far as stuff I've actually heard goes. Before that, he was usually a lot spottier than critics at the time gave him credit for. Anyway, I did some excavating in the past year, starting about here:

Graham Parker C/D

wrote something about Dierks B. recently--I thought his bluegrass record was mainly a load of shit, just because the songs were such Music Row hackdom and phoned in....one blues by Suzi Ragsdale or someone like that (writer) was kinda good

That'd be "Bad Angel," I guess, the track with Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson on it -- and, to my ears, one of the duller tracks on what I wound up thinking was a pretty good record. Was skeptical at first, and said so here (bluegrass move -- who cares), but wound up thinking otherwise. (Linked my Rhapsody review up above.) Definitely prefer most of the Jon Randall co-writes to "Bad Angel." And I don't see how all the death and gambling and drug references are typical 2010 Nashville, either (nor is covering U2 and Dylan, both of which I think came out okay.) Favorites are probably "You're Dead To Me" and "Down In The Mine," though it'd take another listen to it to make sure. At any rate, I'd now rate it Dierks's second or third best album, I think.

The album that I do think is really really disappointing, after a couple listens, is the new Little Big Town album (out Aug 24.) First single "Little White Church" still sounds pretty great, but I'm not hearing anything else yet that even comes close -- and I liked both of their last two albums a lot. Maybe the novelty of being a Fleetwood Mac without the songwriting skills or Stevie Nick's singing or Lindsey Buckingham's guitar (couldn't they hire Urban or Paisley or somebody to pull that off once in a while?) is starting to wear thin, but I honestly think they may just have run out of songs, for the time being.

It's in the last quarter of the CMT Top 20 Countdown either just above or below
"Wrong Baby Wrong." I liked it but it's not spectacular. The entire 20 is pretty lackluster
except for Kellie Pickler's "Makin' Me Fall In Love Again," which is jaunty but not really
country. Neither is Underwood's "Undo It" which is #1. That's arena rock lite.

When Nickelback's "This Afternoon" sounds good in the context of most of them, it's a slow
month.

Two songs on water, Luke Bryan's "Rain is a Good Thing" which has gotta have the worst lyrics I've heard in a long time. Cracked out the rhyming dictionary for whiskey and frisky for that slice of retard rock. And Paisley's thing.

Off thread story, I never listen to Nickelback and I'd e-mailed xhuxk last year trying to identify a song I thought was by some overwraught-sounding girl pop singer because a psychotic guy who lives near me was playing the same chorus of it over and over until the apartment super pulled the power on him.

Turned out it was Nickelback's "I'm Never Gonna Be Alone," which is from the same two year old album as "This Afternoon."

That song is psychotic guy's favorite and it now inspires, figuratively speaking, blinding
headaches in the rest of us who live in his vicinity in a courtyard arrangement. One of the reasons I profoundly detest Nickelback.

Maybe the novelty of being a Fleetwood Mac without the songwriting skills or Stevie Nick's singing or Lindsey Buckingham's guitar (couldn't they hire Urban or Paisley or somebody to pull that off once in a while?) is starting to wear thin

I bet they're really tired of hearing this and now of mixed opinion on whether being so closely described as a redo of Fleetwood Mac helped or hurt. In the short term, yes. In the long term, no.

And the Crossroads segment linking them with Lindsey Buckingham -- I dunno. Tom Petty always
had the best of that deal with Stevie Nicks.

Anyway, "Little White Church" sounds great but a trifle rote. And they aren't really much like
soCali Fleetwood Mac, not at all on that tune. They don't, for instance, have a husky
singer like Christine McVie. And they don't have a weirdo on guitar(s) like Lindsay
Buckingham, who's greatest licks were in "Go Your Own Way" and that's about it. Live he was
still playin' Peter Green's "Oh Well" at every show, just like Bob Welch had to. Has anyone ever actually bought a Lindsay Buckingham solo album?

So not having Lindsay Buckingham on guitar is not actually a handicap in my book, although the Buckingham-Nicks songwriting pair was great for two albums.

couldn't they hire Urban or Paisley or somebody to pull that off once in a while?)

Well -- no, because Buckingham really never had any licks except the one I mentioned that people gave a shit about. So two songs, one which is folk, "Gold Dust Woman."

And -- yeah, someone who could pull off Paisley's hack Fender Esquire/Tele into a Vox thing with
a Way Huge Aquapuss delay box (it's all over every one of his last four albums) would fit into a few of their things. But Paisley got into using his signature as a money shot and equivalent of a tire squeal/smokey burnout. It often does not add to his songs at all. It just tells you, yeah -- it;s Brad Paisley on guitar. You can't have helped but notice that his second most heard song, or maybe first, "Welcome to the Future," owes everything to Mike Campbell in its best parts, a guitar player who has many signature licks, but not one single trademark he places in every Heartbreakers number.

I think Paisley's high tide was on "Alcohol" which, to me, is conspicuous for the absence for the seasoning he put onto all his later tunes.

And he always does a melodic rhythmic thing with a sequencer -- not gonna bore you with what the device is -- once on every album and that usually works for me.

Paisley's best contribution is his Tele twang when he's doing rhythm and riffs. It's literally perfect.

So if that fits the music, yeah he's great. And now he's proved he can do the big jangle, too, which is always popular.

If I were Little Big Town, though, I'd stick with the unknown hacks or Mike Landau. Someone who you could tell "make it sound like [fill in the blank]" with the former, or make it explode into lyrical and dramatic arena rock, like the latter.

Downloaded McBride's Shine from Amazon last night minus a couple tunes I'd sampled and thought were unneccessary. I like it. "Ride" is second to the lead-off cut in interest. I vaguely remember a video for it, or hearing it somewhere, so apparently it didn't catch on as much as "Wrong Baby Wrong."

She made a Pat Benatar-like record, with a much lighter touch and without the blazing axe of Giraldo and the attack it brings. Fine by me for the tunes.

Didn't know "Wrong Baby Wrong" was written by Robert Ellis Orall, a name I've heard for years but for which I still can't conjure up a picture.

Dierks' bluegrass thing: gamblin' and death are essential Nashville tropes from way back. I wrote something about the record and said the Dylan and U2 covers were honorable enough, far as it goes; and the whole point of Dierks is his road-dog liberal persona--an example of Nashville outreach. Which is also why he made a bluegrass record when the biggest thing around right now IS bluegrass, roots, gypsy fuckin' swing and all the rest. No matter how hard I try, and I do appreciate a lot of bluegrass, love the Stanley Brothers, and even like Ricky Skaggs' band despite Skaggs' know-nothing politics (he has some great hair, too), I can't get with bluegrass' formalism--its cleanliness--for more than about 15 minutes at a pop. Clarence White is perhaps an exception. I went back and listened to Dierks again and the songs are just about nothing--the Dylan isn't, sure--unless you think "goin' up on the ridge" to fuck your girl away from Society is an idea or "achin'" and "heartbreakin'" is a good rhyme, I don't. Or songs about being a "roving gambler." Pure formalism, and sure, there's some fine pickin' in all of it, what Nashville record doesn't have it? And altho I'm not a bluegrasser, I do appreciate stuff like Cadillac Sky a lot--at least song structures are fucked with, solos are edited, and so forth--someone's thinking, but I hear the Dierks as another release from Capitol Nashville, plug in bluegrass formula and collect songs. Enjoyable enough as a diversion but content nil, and the reason I like the blues is that it gives the concept some room to breathe. Dierks is a singles artist--I think his early singles are fairly great but his albums-as-albums are tedious, plus he's a marginal singer at best. I hear more soul in Dave Matthews. The only difference between Dierks and something even less interesting--like the L.A. quintet Rose's Pawn Shop, who are coming to Nashville next week and playing the 45-capacity venue the Basement while Dierks is filling up the stadia--is the marketing clout of Capitol Records. No discernible diff in singing, of course the big-name pickers on Dierks' record are better, but the concept is the same--country rock with banjos and fiddles. For me, "Up on the Ridge" is just fatally simple-minded. I'm sure he fucked her up on the ridge and smoked some very good weed, or is that the other way around, and her daddy never caught on, he's such a nice young man.

Chuck asked about Don Williams. I suppose I like him all right, but never really attended to him beyond the hits. Very lulling singer.

Escovedo isn't as good in my book as Chuck Prophet, with whom Alejandro has worked. And I'm aware that Prophet is kind of a third-hand artiste too, being a typical Chiltonian in the American weirdo vein. But Chuck seems mostly light-hearted even when he's trying hard, whereas Escovedo seems overwrought almost always. For me, the voice just doesn't justify the production or the pretensions, but many people think he's great.

"Lulling" is a perfect description for Don Williams' voice. "If Hollywood Don't Need You (Honey, I Still Do)" is the most interesting of his hits, though it seems like "You Believed in Me" and "Lord I Hope This Day Is Good" are the only singles of his with any recurrent presence, at least on the local classic country station.

Escovedo is fine enough at what he does-- the lack of hooks has always been a problem-- but I agree that Prophet is better in filling that niche. Todd Snider is too hit or miss and is usually too pleased with himself when he hits. For my money, Fred Eaglesmith has the most distinct point of view and most interesting songcraft of that particular demo.

I've cooled somewhat on the LBT record since my initial recommendation upthread, though it's still a sight better than Lady Antebellum or, say, Chatham County Line.

Okay, I clearly need to regroup and recalibrate my Dierks defense. Will hold off on that for now. Again; think it's a good album, not a great one. (And I have tended to find him effective or better as a singer.)

Have never gotten Chuck Prophet, fwiw (at least not his own albums, only two of which I've heard, I believe, and it's possible I didn't give them the time they deserved -- pretty sure he's shown up in the credits of other people's albums that I like more.) (Whose? I dunno.)

Best new country song I heard on the radio this weekend, driving to visit wife's relatives in the east Texas woods and back: Don't think there was one. Best old country song I heard that I didn't know: "CC Waterback," which is apparently by George Jones and Merle Haggard, from 1982. Best Regional Mexican song: something with a chorus that seemed to go "aqui hay amor," which google seems to attribute to either Take That (fairly positive it wasn't them) or a song called "Mi Niña Bonita" by an apparent Venezuelan reggaeton duo called Chio and Nacho, but I'm pretty sure the song I heard had nothing to do with reggaeton, either -- unless reggaeton has changed a lot since I lived in Queens.

Notes on the new Mother Truckers album: "Alien Girl" has a T. Rex riff; "Break-Up Sex" sounds kind of like the Faces; "Keep It Simple" seems to be an attempt at a neo-soul ballad (and it's fine, but I still don't get why anybody would consider it the best track on the album); "Size Of The Sun" reminds me of Meat Puppets in Grateful Dead mode; "Summer Of Love" is an obvious ZZ Top move and simulateneously the most metal and most county song on the album; "Van Tour" is sort of a post-Replacements college rock novelty thing (about being a small time road band, obviously -- a country band, actually) but I like it anyway. Would like it more if Teal Collins sang it rather than her husband Josh Zee. Like George says (and Josh apparently admits), the guy can't sing as good as he plays guitar. His plain voice reminds me of somebody specific in the post-Westerberg college nerd rock realm, but I can't place who -- Dave Pirner, maybe? Probably not, but somebody like that. Album as a whole is vaguely Stonesish, guitar and rhythmwise.